Harlequinade
by Kyilliki
Summary: A series of fourteen unconnected drabbles featuring various Volturi pairings. Posted for Valentine's Day.
1. Blank Slate

**Author's Note: ** Upon cleaning out my computer's hard-drive, I found some roughly-drafted drabble ideas that weren't developed enough to be turned into anything longer. All of them featured romantic interactions of a sort, and in the spirit of Valentine's Day, I decided to polish them up and post them. Each drabble features different (generally Volturi affiliated) characters, varying ratings, and mostly non-canon pairings. Warning will accompany each chapter, if necessary. There will be fourteen pieces in total.

_title: _**Blank** **Slate**  
><em>rating<strong>: <strong>_**T  
><strong>_pairing:_** Aro/Sulpicia  
><strong>

* * *

><p>It was her grace, delicacy woven from cobwebs and dawn, that caught Aro's gaze. Amidst the roar and rise of Roman streets, she was purity itself.<p>

In the blue-black dark of her bedchamber, he considers the possibility of underestimation.

"You followed me," she says, her voice lyrically accusing and her eyes like those of a cat, still and wild. The nervous yoke of her shoulders betrays the desire to run. Or fight, perhaps, and that delights him.

"I did."

"I know why." Her heart beats sticky-loud, but steady nonetheless.

"You will find, my dear, that my motives are not those of other men," he says, grinning. The fickle light turns his teeth into a silver sickle, a pale threat.

"Are they not?" She toys with a tendril of hair, before brushing the tawny thicket of her curls away from her throat. "You want me."

He tries to laugh, to declare her an arrogant little girl, but she disentangles herself from her covers. The gesture does nothing to refute the accusation of pride, but beneath the filmy tunic she wears, there is no trace of childishness.

"As I said," she murmurs, stepping closer to the corner where he stands, fabric skimming her hips the way he wishes his fingers could.

His clenched fists betray him, no doubt.

"I did not specify the purpose of my visit."

"Could there be any other?" she muses, so close that he can feel her breath at his throat.

"You are a clever girl," he admits, seeking excuses to touch her. For the acquisition of knowledge, of course. He is not the sort to molest high-born Roman orphans for the joy of it, or so he tells himself.

"And you interest me," she decides.

After examining his features, she spins on her toes, turning her reflection on marble tiles into a dance of silk and shadow, and climbs into bed once more.

"If you are not one of my more vivid imaginings, you may return." Her dignity is effortless. Perfectly patrician.

And he may just accept the offer.


	2. Gilded

_title: _**Gilded  
><strong>_rating_:** soft M  
><strong>_warnings:_** sexuality  
><strong>_pairing:_** Carlisle/Didyme  
><strong>

* * *

><p>It is so easy to imagine Carlisle on his knees.<p>

Didyme fancies that he spends hours in that position, hands dutifully clasped before him while shivering lips shape sacred syllables and immortal ears strain to catch some sliver of the divine.

Occasionally, she goes to him, her gown the colour of saffron and her eyes wide and dark, watching him politely until he feels obliged to say something—_anything_—to stir the stillness. He's charming when he babbles, even more so when he can't, his mouth otherwise occupied.

His touch is that of a reluctant physician, a man with trembling hands who wishes to map the lines of her body but lacks the precision. Disapproval, the sort that stems from a childhood of reminders that he is not quite sinless enough, makes him desperate.

And, just as she thought, he looks lovely when he kneels. Stained glass tints the light around them.

While he's whispering kisses into the sodden silk between her thighs, she coos the right endearments and finds his cheek with her palm. Reaches for her gift, the curling little tendrils of sunlight that follow her like an aureole, and presses it into his skull. She doesn't expect the gasp, the way his teeth dig into her for a moment, but then she has a tendency of underestimating herself.

When he finally looks up, his eyes are reverent, and nothing else.

She won't forgive him for turning her yellow dress into rags and ribbons.

[-]

"Dear brother," Didyme says, now in deeply triumphant amethyst, "Carlisle will be staying with us. No need to thank me."

She offers the robed man her hand, but he does not take it.


	3. Dioscuri

_title: _**Dioscuri **  
><em>rating:<em> **T**  
><em>warnings: <em>**incest  
><strong>_pairing: _**Alec/Jane****  
><strong>

* * *

><p>Everything about Jane is heartbreaking.<p>

Her gown doesn't suit a girl of thirteen; it's heavy and tight and stiff all at once. Alec hates the fabric's whisper when it brushes the floor, the way ink and damask swallow his sister whole. He's not afraid anymore, doesn't have to be—Master promised—but then, he is.

It's just that he can't find the words.

Instead, he catches her hand with his own. Holds it as gently as he can, and doesn't know what else to do.

"We're alone," she says, her voice reedy. Lonely too, and it's always been that way.

It dawns upon him that she has her reasons for dressing like a dead girl's doll and savaging her hair with a silver comb until it falls straight. If she looks the part of a beloved child, perhaps someone will forget that she isn't.

"You have me."

She looks at him, appraising. Eyes bright as a bat's and just as wary.

He wonders if she'll dart away the moment he releases her fingers or whether she'll wait even that long before finding the fire that lives inside her and pouring it into him.

For once, Jane surprises him.

"Yes."

It's terribly innocent, what he does next. Lips grazing her cheek, he feels only skin like mottled glass. The warm wash of completeness comes later, when his clever hands find the row of buttons down her spine. Beneath, she's only a fragile little thing, but entirely alien. Her softening lines are nothing like his own ribs and angles, and compelling because of it.

They've always been alike.

Later, he knows, they'll fall together and learn the terrain of one another, marvelling at the wayward mirrors which are their bodies. But now, it's only gentleness and touch, a sad-eyed boy and a girl tucked beside one another, ruins around them.


	4. Familiar Dances

_title: _**Familiar Dances**  
><em>rating<strong>: <strong>_**M  
><strong>_warnings: _**sexuality, language  
><strong>_pairing:_** Felix/Heidi/Demetri  
><strong>

* * *

><p>Heidi's not the kind of woman who sits alone in bars. Felix can't help but rectify the situation, squeezing in beside her, an obnoxiously verdant drink in hand.<p>

Her lashes are improbably long, he notes, shadowing her eyes in clumped crescents every time she glances at the cocktail her fingers are cupping. A Black Rose— wickedly potent beneath its sweetness.

"Good choice," he says. Metaphorical. Melodramatic, even.

"Smells disgusting," she admits, rolling violet-tinted eyes. "But I'm blending in tonight."

Only Heidi would call stilettos with red soles and a pout painted on with bloody ink inconspicuous, but he's used to that. Her beauty is the kind that announces itself, accessories be damned.

"I noticed. How many guys asked for your number? Three?" He smiles crookedly, jealously.

"I've lost my touch."

"Damn straight."

"And Demetri's found it, apparently," she sighs, casting a glance over to their _associate_, who flirts with dark eyes and quick-witted charm. His crowd of admirers grows, as does the ring of untouched drinks around him. It's practically a riot.

"Humans are idiots," Felix says brusquely. "He's clearly evil. And even more obviously an ass."

She conceals her laughter behind fingers tipped with varnished nails and he decides that she's cute when she's coy. Brushing away a stray curl that's escaped her artfully messy up-do, he murmurs, "We'll teach him the error of his ways."

She smells like expensive perfume, the sort with a French name and a bow on the bottle, and beneath that, of salt and heat. Of the hunt. And that's when Felix knows exactly how this night's going to end.

They'll grab Demetri and pull him out of the bar, crushing him between them and drowning him with wet, clumsy kisses until he laughs. Apologizes. Does that thing where he grazes Felix's throat with his teeth and slips slender fingers down Heidi's spine while she arches desperately, forgetting how to be graceful. In the car, they'll fight about who drives, and complain about the ambient music while shrugging off jackets and scarves.

The crests around their throats stay on. _Always_.

And then, Heidi will fall onto the bed, completely naked and not even a little shy, smirk wide and arms spread wider, an expression that says _get yourselves over here and _fuck me_. _

Felix has always been good at following orders, and Demetri complies too, sometimes.

Writhing and melting and colliding, they'll fall together, and he can't guess who'll be in the middle, whom he'll be pleasuring with tongue and cock and eager fingers, but he knows that the woman with mahogany hair will scream and scratch while the slight man comes apart silently, shivering. The heat will claim him, fast and hard, until he's helpless. Growling. Caught between wildness and a softness that promises to tear him apart, just as surely, from within.

Afterwards, Felix (_only and ever Felix_) will blurt something affectionate and Heidi, curled between cushions and rough hands like a sated cat, will punch his shoulder and murmur, "Shut up, man." The bear's growl that passes for his laughter will linger in the slivers of space between the three of them.

Even Demetri, who's too worldly for this kind of thing, will bite back a smile as strange and watchful as he is, casually mentioning that he wouldn't mind being here, pinned into place between them, for the next decade or three.


	5. What Is Left

_title: _**What Is** **Left**  
><em>rating:<em> **Soft M**  
><em>warnings: <em>**sexuality**  
><em>pairing: <em>**Sulpicia/Athenodora**

* * *

><p>When the brothers leave, taking most of the Guard with them, the palazzo becomes lonely and whispering. Ghosts glide free of the stonework, turning corridors into the realms of memory. The sound of rain creeps in everywhere.<p>

And, amidst the haunted corners, Sulpicia and Athenodora look at one another, exchanging small, surreptitious smirks that they give to no-one else.

It—the frisson of heat between them that has no name— always starts gently, tentatively, as though they've forgotten the steps. Sulpicia digs her chin into Athenodora's shoulder, bright hair tumbling all over the open pages of her companion's book, introducing the dawn to colourless illustrations. The pale woman laughs, calls her a nuisance, but takes her hand anyway, insisting that Aro's wife remain beside her.

Sulpicia's mouth, reddened and sweet, doesn't leave Athenodora's throat.

"Must you?" she sighs, thawing a little and hiding it well.

"I take vampirism seriously."

Being playful comes readily when her touch is not a gateway to her mind.

It's only a matter of time until they're in Sulpicia rooms, surrounded by cool, milk-eyed statues and tapestries of fantastic creatures tearing one another to shreds. Athenodora insists that the decor is spooky, before being silenced by quick kisses and the warm, heavy-sweet scent of pomegranates.

Falling on the bed in messy shapes is second nature, because they have never decided who should take the lead. Eventually, they settle for lying side by side, facing one another and staring with black eyes as slim fingers dart low and lower. Golden Sulpicia turns dramatic and gasping, while Athenodora smiles, silent in her abandon.

Afterwards, they tangle into the sheets like girls with a secret, hair snarled into silver-gold mesh.

"How long do you think they will be gone?" Sulpicia coos, her cheek nestled against her lover's throat.

"America is a long way away, and they have a war on their hands. A year, maybe."

And when that year passes, they'll return to being loyal and lovely. In the meantime, happiness will be settled for instead.


	6. Anterograde Amnesia

_title: _**Anterograde** **Amnesia**  
><em>rating: <em>**T  
><strong>_pairing:_** Aro/Alice**  
><strong><br>**

* * *

><p>She is a beautiful dancer, Carlisle's fairytale daughter, her fingers fluttering like birch-bark, an inferno's beginnings residing in her eyes. Her bare feet slide upon stone, her mind naked and frayed to match.<p>

There is a certain poetry there.

They dress Alice in a black that mimics the shade of blindness, previously reserved for the ancients, and she sobs. Tries to rend her clothes like some mythical mourner and gives up. Surrender has become second nature to her, or perhaps it has always been there, just waiting beneath the surface like the delirium which eats her whole, a starved beast with an appetite for memory.

Occasionally, when Aro is bored, he calls her to his throne, a Grecian king summoning his mad prophetess. Her hand is fragile in his, and he pets the clenched fingers until she opens her palm like a marble blossom.

Beneath her skin, the same thoughts play on a scratchy loop, which pauses inconveniently at the moment when Jasper's nails begin to fissure from the heat. And the future—well, gifts can break. Lose their potency over the years. Succumb to bias.

All she sees, dear little Mary Alice, when she looks into the dawn-rimed horizon, is white and red and black, rotting skin and cataract-eyes.

_Aro and nothing else. _

His kiss is ringed with teeth and her screams make a garland around her ears.


	7. Next Chances

_title_: **Next Chances  
><strong>_rating:_** M  
><strong>_warnings:_** sexuality, language  
><strong>_pairing:_** Marcus/Irina  
><strong>

* * *

><p>Irina finds herself spared at Marcus' request.<p>

"She is already dead, my brothers," he says, his voice like limestone, flaking and eager to break. "Why extend her the mercy I am denied?"

Aro considers this, tasting torture's bitterness between his teeth and agrees with a smile.

"She can stay with us," he purrs. "Her lovely sisters need a lesson."

And she thinks of yawning Siberian winters, when there was blood and warmth within and around. Of Laurent, whom she had only begun loving. The colours whirl to white behind her eyes, until she sees nothing and feels less.

[-]

Later, when she's doing that poetic revision thing she's so good at, Irina will say that she ended up in Marcus' room because they both wanted to feel. To escape the tomb they built for themselves and lined with memories so well-thumbed that they're no longer recognizable.

At this instant, when he's between her thighs and her nails are ripping crescents into his shoulders, she knows that there's no metaphor behind this. The castle turns oppressive at night, when everyone's feeding, or fucking, or casually brutalizing some unfortunate human (_all three at once, on special occasions_), and this is the best way of escaping. The only way, really.

It's not her name he chokes on when he comes.

She doesn't say anything at all.

[-]

Eventually, they exchange a few words post-sex. It makes the furtive dressing less awkward.

"You were a succubus," Marcus says, as though inquiring about a past job. "Did you enjoy it?"

"It got old," she admits, trying to straighten her bluntly-cut hair.

"Most things do."

She figures that's what will happen with this _arrangement_. There's only so much collective sadness that either of them can take.

[-]

And yet, ten years later, when she's a guard and he remains Master Marcus, they still meet up on some nights. Talk a little, with the requisite sarcasm and other low forms of wit that the wounded are so skilled at using. Touch, in the practised way of people who have one another memorized. Smile, occasionally. Mostly, they're just shared smirks, but it's a beginning.

Once, in a fit of depressing tenderness, Irina tells him that he's not so bad to have around. Better than Aro, and leagues ahead of Caius.

"I echo the sentiment," he agrees, old-fashioned as always.

She's read better prologues to love stories, but she's not the kind to make comparisons.


	8. Feathers in the Flame

_title: _**Feathers in the Flame  
><strong>_rating_:** K  
><strong>_pairing:_ **Jane/Aro**  
><em>note:<em> This drabble was published only livejournal two years ago, for the uncanon Twilight drabble-a-thon.  
><strong><br>**

* * *

><p>The edges and ends of her hair have turned to feathers in the flames. Jane gnaws at her nails to keep herself from fiddling with the remnants of ruined beauty, and waits for the tears to tumble, etching salt-stains upon her cloak. They do not.<p>

Instead, a hand like parchment finds her chin. There are no questions, no inquiries that pry apart her ribs and probe her silent heart. She is shown scissors and a silvered mirror.

"We can fix this."

She does not gaze upward, afraid of seeing ashes in the looking glass and pity upon patrician features.

For a few minutes, long fingers straighten dirt-coloured strands, seeking the memories of fire and cutting them away, until softness remains.

"There. Look how lovely you are."

Aro's smile curves the corners of her own lips as unwelcome warmth constricts her stomach. In that dizzying, desperate moment, Jane lives only to be beautiful in his eyes.


	9. Bonded

_title: _**Bonded  
><strong>_rating_:** T  
><strong>_warnings:_** peripheral character death  
><strong>_pairing:_** Marcus/Didyme**

* * *

><p>"What," Didyme purrs, "was that about?"<p>

Her robes are loose at the throat, slipping lower incrementally and revealing alabaster. It's a casual seduction, one that can be prolonged and savoured as Marcus murmurs confessions and kisses into the crook of her throat. A fitting celebration for a saint's day.

"Why are you on my desk?" he wonders, sitting down in front of her on the rigid, antique thing that he considers a chair and she calls to-be-destroyed. Pale feet land in his lap and his grin turns to shy amusement.

"Why not? Now, answer me," she commands, her smile unfurling like a flower.

She's a dictator in miniature, and he finds it delightful.

"The Cullen boy came for a visit. Carlisle's son."

Her mind strays to eyes like precious metals and perfectly styled hair, crests and fumbling modernity.

"And he's a copy of his—ah—father, yes?" she says.

"Was," Marcus corrects, and her brows arch. Bare-shouldered, Didyme unpins her hair and permits it to tumble everywhere. Her mate has always adored the dark rebellion of her curls.

"The past tense," she sighs. "Have we let Caius off his leash again?"

She slips a little closer to him, heavy fabric lapping at the arch of her breasts. His gaze turns into a caress, eager and gentle and so patient and it warms her.

"These were extraordinary circumstances. The boy begged for death because he thought his mate lost to him," he muses, and she encourages him with a glance.

"And then, when we did not grant it, he revealed what he was. Rather publicly, I'm afraid."

Didyme's giggles shimmer in the space between them, sunlight on dragonfly-wings.

"Oh gods, now I'm imagining him taking off his clothes in a piazza in front of some unsuspecting tourists," she says.

"Which he did, more or less." He aims to be sombre, but the absurdity of it paints his features with laughter. "And for that, we condemned him. Alas, his little mortal mate turned up just in time to watch the sentence."

She should be shocked, playing to her veneer of petal-cheeked innocence, but she knows her brothers too well for that. Instead, she cups his face with soothing hands, a benediction that he will accept from her and no-one else.

"And you were not moved to mercy, my sweet saint Marcus?" she wonders.

"His love, my dear, was no excuse. I saw it—the bond."

"And?" Her jealousy of his talent is a constant—not because she wishes to have it, but because she cannot see everything he can.

"It was nothing like ours," he admits. "Not—"

The word he seeks is _enough_, but Didyme does not say it. Instead, she topples into his lap, robes bunches around her waist and mouth starving. Kisses and curls and drowns him in the joy he craves until he thaws into her.

Her creation— precious Marcus—is glorious. She will never let him forget.


	10. Lithium

_title: _**Lithium  
><strong>_rating_:** T  
><strong>_pairing:_** Corin/Chelsea **_(or Quirina/Charmion, using their ancient names)  
><em>

* * *

><p>Their secret starts as politics made flesh.<p>

Aro finds Quirina difficult, a surly, solitary thing whose loyalty cannot be bought with baubles and promises. In desperation, he goes to Charmion and gazes at her as though she was the most precious creature imaginable, his eyes suggesting any reward she could name, if only—

And, in the name of power, the dark-haired woman with the binding gift seeks Quirina's chambers at night. Something terribly clumsy—_I want you_ or perhaps _You are lovely_—falls from her lips; she has never needed seduction before. Her carrot-haired listener raises her brows and smiles a little.

"Aro put you up to this," she says, before stepping very, very close and kissing her lightly. Impersonally. "I will forgive you if you disobey him."

"Oh, my dear, surely you can guess the consequences of that," she replies. It is a game, after all, and she will play it well, talents be damned.

"I see," she purrs. Quirina's mouth, open this time, tastes of nothing at all, but it crawls beneath Charmion's skin, leaving her gasping and writhing and—_more_.

[-]

Later, when they are Chelsea and Corin, hands and legs and bonds intertwined, they will not speak of gifts, of who keeps whom bound behind Volterra's walls. It's a common courtesy, they agree.

And Aro is so very certain that he's won.


	11. Becoming

_title: _**Becoming  
><strong>_rating_:** soft M  
><strong>_warnings:_** sexuality  
><strong>_pairing:_** Carlisle/Marcus**

* * *

><p>The sheets are sun-warmed, the pristine scent of cotton still caught in their creases. Marcus cannot recall the last time something so trivial captured his notice, but he luxuriates like a sated cat in the tangle of cream and amber. His muscles remain ropes, a certain starched stiffness clinging to his smiles, but there is no denying the joy beneath, blinking gold like a coin in riverbank mud.<p>

"Good morning," he says, touching his mouth to his lover's shoulder. The skin there is hard, carrying an aftertaste of hesitation and sweetness. His hopes are pinned on the latter.

Carlisle Cullen—the too-Irish name is foreign in his thoughts and tongue—shifts to face him. His hands clench, as though he has no idea where to put them, and his eyes are the ugly shade of oil burning. Livid and guilty and wild.

"I—I offer my apologies," he says, shaking fingers trying to smooth the tangles in short, gilt hair.

"Why?" The inquiry is dreamy. Free of vehemence. And, oh, he is so certain that it will throw his golden pet off-balance.

"Because my conduct was—unseemly. And it should not be repeated," he whispers, choking on every syllable and tugging at the covers like a child.

Marcus raises a brow and permits the silence to speak for itself. The previous night, all spilled blood and clumsy, questing hands (_Carlisle's desperate and sticky and begging)_, is practically innocent by the standards the Volturi set.

"I cannot be yours," the golden man continues.

His dark-haired companion examines him critically, rumpled and wide-eyed, the memory of teeth all over his skin, and makes a verdict.

"You already are _mine_," Marcus says. He remembers how easily that word swayed him when Didyme's flower-shaped mouth uttered it.

It has not lost its power. Carlisle may struggle a little, grasping for sinlessness and finding it tainted, but he will give up in time.

Fold himself into Marcus' embrace, miserable and ecstatic and flayed.

Accept rubies for eyes.

_Become._


	12. The Fall

_title: _**The Fall  
><strong>_rating_:** M  
><strong>_warnings:_** sexuality  
><strong>_pairing:_** Caius/Athenodora  
><strong>_a note:_ This first of three barbarian sacks of Rome occurred in 410 C.E. There's some debate as to how the aforementioned Visigoths entered the city, which leaves me with only one historically tenable conclusion: vampires let them in.

* * *

><p>The swirling streets smell of iron and smoke which stains night the shade of rust. Here and there, Athenodora can hear screams, the damp collision of swords and flesh, but she avoids seeking blood. Instead, she looks for Caius, a study in black and pale, who is certain to be admiring his handiwork from the shadows.<p>

She finds him on the Tiber's far bank, on the roof of some sprawling marble structure—a church, a temple—made grandiose by the pillars Romans favoured once. Darting to his side, she peers over his shoulder at the conquest before them.

"What broke the siege?" she wonders.

"A few slaves opened one of the gates," he says.

She knows that smirk well.

"Of course they did." Her hand finds his, gritty with dust and blood. She doesn't mind that, interlacing their fingers together.

"Your doubt wounds me," he grins. "And where have you been?"

"Rescuing a few scrolls from an untimely death by fire," she says, a little more pointedly than she intends. Granting barbarians from beyond the Rhine entry into Rome itself is a necessity, but she sees no reason to forgive them for putting libraries to the torch.

"Predictable."

"Have I lost my mystery?" she says, brushing a ghost of a caress over his shoulder.

He laughs, a quiet snarl of mirth trapped in his chest, and pulls her in front of her, twining his arms around her waist.

"It's beautiful." His gaze is on the skyline, lapped by flame and pillared by smoke. Where Athenodora sees ruins, Caius sees beginnings and she cannot help but mirror his smile. Finding his mouth, she kisses him hard, all teeth and amusement and want.

And then, they fall onto stone, tearing fabric with to jagged scraps, hands made clumsy by impatience. Athenodora feels a phantom pulse fluttering between her thighs and digs demanding fingers into her lover's spine. Wars won make him wild, and embers of pain are all the permission he needs to lose himself.

Caius doesn't bother with gentleness. He knows her too well, each touch calculated to unstitch her a little. She's driven to the brink so quickly that it smarts, her hips jolting sharply to meet him while her shoulders carve ridges into the ground beneath her.

There's fire in her veins, in his eyes, in the darkness, and she laughs when she comes, anticipating something she cannot name.


End file.
